❧
It's been said that my mother wasn't an especially good cook. I've said it myself. The one thing my parents did know about was fresh cow milk, and what to do with before a reliable source of refrigeration came along. I used to milk those Jersey cows. They were famous for the amount of butterfat in their milk. Nothing we did back in my early years had anything to do with pasteurizing cow milk. As the milk got older they did different things to it to keep it useful and not dangerous.
About the only thing I had to do with this process other than milk the cows was to help churn butter. Many an hour has been spent plunging the paddle up and down, up and down. It's the rhythm of life. Like what is indicated by the ringing of a village bell. If it rings at the right time, then everything is cool. But, if that bell rings at some unannounced time, it's "Katy, bar the door!"
When I worked up in Columbus, Nebraska helping to build a corn processing plant I became familiar with tornado sirens. Columbus is located on the northeast side of the Platte River. The locals that worked on the same jobsite had a saying or some sort of belief that the river protected Columbus from tornados.
Maybe so. I only lived and worked there in "tornado alley" for three months, and we worked lots of overtime. The sirens were a fixture. What the locals told me on the job was all I ever got to know about that town. Many times after we got off working twelve hour shifts, we'd stop by the designated road whore construction worker bar.
A smart family man might stop there for a quick one and get on home to momma and the kids. People like that come and go in industrial construction crew. A great majority of them have been divorced, and many of them have divorced several times. It's an addiction. Living among strangers who don't know your history can be told anything, even the truth, and they don't have much choice but to take you at your word.
Living that way usually means that the traveler (who is addicted to creating their own personality as they go along don't hold no truck with the God's own truth). The truth is what's useful or not. Granted, the same information that wasn't available to the strangers I lied to, is quite available over the internet. It doesn't matter. I just hafta be mo' cautious about how I arrange data and facts to come up with believable figures. If you don't understand, just leave a comment. '-)
A first and only event did happen in Columbus, Nebraska. I went to a comedy club. Why would I not? I was working and making good money. Even a dedicated miser can afford a night on the town occasionally. If I enjoyed myself at all at that comedy club, I enjoyed myself too much. I guess I laughed so hard I got embarrassed. The comedians got mad at me. My truly hysterical responses drew more attention than their jokes.
The same thing has happened to me at clubs where I used to go to dance. I got more attention from my dancing than the band did from their playing. They hated me. Some of them I knew personally. As a result of my fancy footwork, in modern-day terms, they de-friended me.
No blame. Why would they not? Their best was not enough. People with a natural gift for rabble rousing are as rare as hen's teeth. That's why when they come along and the people start feeling it, their natural response is the proof of the pudding, the crowd goes wild!
Some bitter, spiteful people do their dead-level best to rid the world of people like me. They know what I'm like at first sight, and start plotting and getting the tar hot and the down mattresses out of the attic. They wanna shame me before my sheer presence reveals their mundane inauthenticity. The well has run dry. I just run away and hide. I am is hiding now. I'm hoarding my poetry.
❦
